An Evolution to the Past [Older Pokemon & Pre-/Evolutions]

[Ho-Oh]

I'm legitimately surprised that one aspect of the games hasn't been discussed or thought about at all. Every other form of evolution is discussed - Mega Evolution, New Evolution Methods, Primal Reversion... but what about the old days?

As we know with XY, only one older Pokemon received an evolution (Eevee), whereas everything else just got to become a Mega Evolution. Mega Evolution COULD have been the answer to evolution, but I don't think we should discount getting evolutions of older Pokemon, either.

Miltank and Tauros were rumoured to receive pre-evolutions for years, while other Pokemon desperately crave one or the other. I'm of the opinion that if it exists it will have to evolve at some point, to become better equipped to face its environment. It's a harsh world out there, and I don't think being a Farfetch'd is going to count for much when you're facing monsters like Thundurus and even Aurorus. That's why I think that most Pokemon will probably end up with evolutions, at some point or another. I personally don't think Mega Evolutions ARE the end to normal evolutions (at least of the past Pokemon).

Let's look at what doesn't have an evolution line (including Megas) at all:
Farfetch'd, Tauros, Kangaskhan, Pinsir, Lapras, Ditto (although I don't like counting it), Aerodactyl, Girafarig, Dunsparce, Unown, Qwilfish, Shuckle, Heracross, Corsola, Delibird, Skarmory, Stantler, Smeargle, Miltank, Sableye, Mawile, Spinda, Zangoose, Seviper, Lunatone, Solrock, Castform, Kecleon, Tropius, Absol, Relicanth, Luvdisc, Pachirisu, Chatot, Spiritomb, Carnivine, Rotom, Audino, Basculin, Maractus, Sigilyph, Emolga, Alomomola, Cryogonal, Stunfisk, Heatmor, Durant, Furfrou, Hawlucha, Dedenne, Carbink (technically has family but isn't connected to Diancie officially - would you like that to become a possibility?) and Klefki (hopefully haven't forgotten any).

Would you like to see evolutions linking families - like Pinsir and Heracross for example? What would its design be like? Aditionally, a lot of these Pokemon have been chucked Mega Evolutions - does that mean they're not likely to get evolutions at all? What about pre-evolutions? Is it fair to just give them Mega Evolutions and not even attempt to extend their family line? What about Eevee, will we end up adding to the family this generation?

How about Pokemon that aren't on this list, anything you'd love to see as an evolution or a pre-evolution? What would its stats and design be like (compared to the original)? It's an interesting discussion point - whether we should expect anything at all.

 

[pkmin3033]

I knew I was forgetting to start a topic about something

I want a small and painfully cute Onix pre-evo called Pebblix or something equally adorable...although I will almost certainly nickname it Pebblix anyway. I will continue to say this every generation until I get what I want. Give me my damn Pebblix, Game Freak!

I think it fairly safe to say Mega Evolutions will mark the end of an evolutionary line, and we won't get evolutions of, say, Absol or Mawile. But pre-evos definitely aren't out of the question...Pokemon have a maximum of three stages, after all. That leaves plenty of room for links. I'd love to see more pre-evos or baby Pokemon! Anything with a two-stage line is fair game, as far as I'm concerned. Granted, I don't think EVERY Pokemon should have three stages, but I've often wondered why, for example, we don't have a separate baby Kangaskhan yet.

As for evolutions linking families...this could be an interesting game mechanic that, whilst it would fly in the face of simplification - which is apparently all the rage right now - would be pretty fun to explore! It's been remarked upon in the past how a lot of Pokemon look very similar to one another (how many people thought Alomomola was a Luvdisc evo, and that Tauros was related to Bouffalant?) and this could be a way to explore that.

This could also serve to bring Gen V in to the fold, which I still think it desperately needs. I realise it was intended to be a standalone reboot of sorts, and for a lot of people that was part of its appeal, but...well, that was one, if not two, generations ago. It's time the Pokemon from Black and White were given proper links to past and future generations, and giving them evolutions and pre-evolutions is a good way to do that. I think we could really use a Throh/Sawk pre-evo similar to Tyrogue. Maybe some weird toxic thing that could evolve into Grimer, Koffing, or Trubbish depending on the circumstances. A tiny snake that can evolve into Ekans or Seviper, plus a Seviper evo to round it all out. Just some ideas.

 

[HyperJono]

I think to tie in with the Sun and Moon games there should be a pre-evo that evolves either into a Solrock during the day or a Lunatone during the night however i can't think of a name for it. Maybe having a possible new Evolution for Jynx and have it evolve in a similar manner to to Electabuzz and Magmar. Basculin could have an evo similar to Magikarp and Feebas and its evolution be similar in design to Gyarados and Militoc. A pre-evo that evolves into Milktank, Tauros or Bouffalant depending on its stats. Have a pre-evo for Darumaka that evolves via frendship

 

[Xander Olivieri]

I personally don't think Mega Evolutions ARE the end to normal evolutions (at least of the past Pokemon).

The only issue, Gamefreak pretty much says that they are. The Mega Evolution process can only be obtained by the highest point in a Pokemon's evolutionary process. At the point that they can no longer evolve through normal means, they gain an extraordinary burst and push into a new pseudo evolution. So anything with a Mega Evolution is Gamefreaks way of saying, that's it for this Pokemon. No evolutionary progress can be made any further.

So Pokemon like Kangaskhan, Pinsir, Heracross, Aerodactyl, Sableye, Mawile, Absol, and Audino are going to remain as single lines as far as potential evolutionary additions after their current forms are involved. Unless Gamefreak removes Mega Evolutions from Sun/Moon and acts as if they never existed.

Likewise, Pokemon with potential to evolve further as they aren't part of the standard 3 stage line like Gyarados, Scizor, Houndoom, Medicham, Manectric, Banette, Lucario, Abomasnow, Slowbro, Steelix, Sharpedo, Camerupt, Altaria, Glalie, and Lopunny, cannot evolve further than they are and seeing as they have previous evolutionary forms, they can't have anything new added to them at all. Unlike the previous list where all are single stage lines and can have new Pre-Evos attached to them while still maintaining the highest point in their evolutionary lines.

I would love if they give others you listed, like Dunsparce, Klefki, Carbink, and Kecleon new evolutions. And Preevolutions to some like Miltank/Tauros (the only unconfirmed natural pair as other natural pairs are interlocked when breeding Like how either Nidoran can breed to give you a male of female nidoran since the base forms are basically one species with gender difference, and that Illumise can give either Volbeat or Illumise babies.) Gamefreak seems to be trying hard to get us to drop Miltank/Tauros as a pair. Them sharing a baby is long overdue.

 

[Hikamaru]

I think Xander might be right in the theory that regular evolutions might be dead as we know it, especially with a lot of single-stage Pokemon we wanted evos and pre-evos getting Megas instead. I would love more regular evolutions but I feel like they're getting more and more unlikely.

 

[illumine]

They've already tried that gimmick, reviving it for these two games would leave them with little new to offer. In any case, they've been stressing evolution for a while now, and have seemingly given up on the Pikachu-theme of non-evolved Pokémon being useable, instead trying to stress Mega-Evolutions and such. That said, in the games Mega-Evolutions are basically just a substitute for grinding, albeit with the caveat of having to get rid of your Pokémon and explicitly replace it with another one for a while, although they would perhaps be encouraging you not to use it generally.

In that sense there is an opposite tendency where fully-evolved forms are now suspect, especially if they're promoted, and not legendaries, but it doesn't follow from this that other evolutions of a Pokémon may be considered otherwise than in terms of weakness or as like fully-evolved forms, if they were promoted by themselves. As such, they would need a correlation to any form of object in order to distract from themselves, as well as others like them, which is perhaps a bit parasitic. The hype around Mega-Evolutions was mostly in a sense spectacle or hype over the modification of the word 'Evolution' with the word 'Mega,' in which context it could only consistently underwhelm, almost by design. Nonetheless, it might be that certain unevolved Pokémon were intended to remain such to accentuate their strengths, instead of distracting from this with a throwaway Pokémon which even they're trying to push as not being nearly as good, and in general there isn't that much of an opening for such.

It might, nonetheless, be worth revisiting some of these older, gimmick or niche Pokémon, which later games have not had as much of, and giving them sub-events or showcasing them a bit, in terms of what they are, which might perhaps also distract from some of the design flaws of the thing. Perhaps also trying to increase the strength of some of the pre-evolutions to make them worth using again, as the idea was never to have a bunch of Pokémon types lining the opening of the game that players were not supposed to get attached to as such.

 

[Esper]

There's always the not-totally-impossible hope of another Eevee evolution, although I think the introduction of Sylveon was mostly as a showcase for the new Fairy-type.

Still, there is room for branching evolutions like what happened with the introduction of Gallade or Froslass. They're pretty interesting because their co-evolutions Gardevoir and Glalie have mega evolutions. So with any of the second- or third-stage Pokemon with existing megas there could always be the chance of an alternate branch. I don't think it's likely, but it can't be ruled out since they do exist. (Though they were introduced as branching then mega, not mega then branching.)

 

[Attribule]

Pre-evolutions are unnecessary and merely pad out the Pokedex with more things people won't use in my opinion, and some of the single-form Pokemon already have Mega Evolutions, so you couldn't evolve them without having to redesign the Mega's, which I highly doubt they would do.

More evolutions would be nice, but not pre-evolutions.

 

[HyperJono]

Attribule I am going to have to disagree with you on pre-evolutions being unessacary. I admit someone pre-evolutions like pichu are useless. Pre-evos tend to only be useless if they have really low stats

 

[pkmin3033]

Pre-evolutions are unnecessary and merely pad out the Pokedex with more things people won't use in my opinion, and some of the single-form Pokemon already have Mega Evolutions, so you couldn't evolve them without having to redesign the Mega's, which I highly doubt they would do.

No Pokemon is "useless" other than from a competitive standpoint...and even then, nothing is certain in that scenario; everyone thought Pachirisu was useless until a little while ago, and this is why things like tiers exist: to allow these Pokemon to have uses in competitive play.

I expect plenty of people use pre-evolutions, or don't evolve their Pokemon at all because they prefer the designs of earlier evolutions. The beauty of Pokemon is that you can play however you want with whatever you want - evolution is not a mandatory thing. You could see it as padding, or you could see it as giving a breath of fresh air to retired, largely forgotten Pokemon from previous generations, making them relevant again. I guess it depends on your personal play style and what you think of the designs. Personally I wouldn't agree with your assessment, but...eh. Different strokes.

 

[Attribule]

No Pokemon is "useless" other than from a competitive standpoint...and even then, nothing is certain in that scenario; everyone thought Pachirisu was useless until a little while ago, and this is why things like tiers exist: to allow these Pokemon to have uses in competitive play.

I expect plenty of people use pre-evolutions, or don't evolve their Pokemon at all because they prefer the designs of earlier evolutions. The beauty of Pokemon is that you can play however you want with whatever you want - evolution is not a mandatory thing. You could see it as padding, or you could see it as giving a breath of fresh air to retired, largely forgotten Pokemon from previous generations, making them relevant again. I guess it depends on your personal play style and what you think of the designs. Personally I wouldn't agree with your assessment, but...eh. Different strokes.

But it doesn't breathe life into them, because that implies it gives them more purpose. A pre-evolution would obviously be weaker than the original. A forgotten Pokemon with a pre-evolution is still forgotten as you're not building upon it - you're breaking it down further.

And it's true that people don't always want to evolve their Pokemon, even if the majority will. But that's no excuse in favor of more pre-evolutions, as giving something forgotten an evolution gives it more forward potential while still allowing whoever wants to to not evolve that Pokemon and instead keep that original form. You don't need a new, weaker form in order to not evolve something, you just keep the original and don't evolve it up to the new form.

Also, I never said anything was useless, just that the majority definitely aren't giving "babies" the time of day in their teams. The people who do still have their options as it is. There are a good amount of them and other "basic" and standalone Pokemon to choose from.

 

[Hikamaru]

I can understand pre-evos to older Pokemon being a waste of a Pokedex slot, because they tend to be "baby" Pokemon with weak stats. But evolutions are something that I think should make a comeback, especially to Pokemon other than Eevee. Eevee I can categorize somewhere else given Sylveon was mainly to showcase the new Fairy-type.

 

[HyperJono]

I admit "baby" pokemon are bad as far as stats go especially Pichu which probably only came in to existence due to Pikachu being the mascot of Pokemon. I also know if they were to introduce new pre-evolutions for older Pokemon I would at least give them a go in battle before I decided on whether I would use it again. But you want in a pokemon game and how you look at things in it all boil down to individual play style and personal prefences

 

[MarinoKadame]

The pre-evolution could always learn exclusive egg-moves that the line couldn't learn before.

 

[jombii]

Oh yeah, I realized we haven't had a new evolution to old Pokemon in years (discounting Eevee to Sylveon because come on, Sylveon was there to introduce the new type.) I hope we do get more of this and less of not-really-needed Mega Evolutions *ehem* Sableye *ehem* Tauros x Miltank is just begging for a pre-evolution and Dunsparce is needing a buff in this world of monsters.

 

[Hikamaru]

The pre-evolution could always learn exclusive egg-moves that the line couldn't learn before.

We actually have a fair share of pre-evolutions that learn moves through level-up that the evolved forms can't learn, so I feel like this won't be a needed concept.

 

[Katchelina]

I feel like the pokemon that cant survive competitive battles on RU or higher need evolutions or megas even if they have them. I used a delcatty on my replay of X(I love its design and moves but its stats are horrible) and I had to overlevel it for it to not be OHKOd by neutral hits :/ Gamefreak should at least make it so the full evos of each line has a chance ingame, let alone against other players.

There are so many pokemon I would love to use but I feel I cant if I want a to stand a chance.

If a base pokemon can do just fine with just a mega(like pinsir and sableye) or on its own(like Skarmory, Pachirisu, and rotom) then I would prefer it not change at all.

 

[OmegaRuby and AlphaSapphire]

Yeah, Delcatty seems like one of those mons that not even a Mega would help. I think they should give it a evolution, and later give that evolution a Mega.

About pre-evos, they could always do a Scyther->Scizor scenario. Scyther's stats don't go up when it evolves into Scyther. Except in this case the pre-evos will be introduced instead of an evolution. I wouldn't mind a baby Mawile... maybe it could have a better special attack stat and have an ability like Pixelate. They have tonbe creative to make them not come off as padding.

 

[Sopheria]

Just looking at past trends for a bit, there actually haven't been any new evolutions or pre-evolutions to existing Pokémon since gen 4. And even looking a bit further back to 3rd gen, there weren't any new evolutions added to existing Pokémon, and only a few baby Pokémon were introduced. I think adding to the evolutionary line of existing Pokémon was one of the big "gimmicks" of 4th gen (given that there were so many), but I don't see it happening in Sun & Moon. It just seems like they've moved away from it since 4th gen.

 

[MarinoKadame]

Most of the cat pokemon only has 1 evolution. Meowth > Persian, Skitty > Delcatty, Glameow > Purrugly, Purrloin > Liepard, Litleo > Pyroar and Espurr > Meowstic.

Shinx > Luxio > Luxray is the only one with a second stage.

I could always add Snubbull > Granbull for Gen 2 since it lacked a Cat line.

Going from all of them from weakest to strongest based on BST we get:
Delcatty 380
Persian 440
Liepard 446
Granbull 450
Purrugly 452
Meowstic 466
Pyroar 507

Luxray is at 523 BST for a 2nd stage with Luxio at 363 BST who is the same stage as Delcatty, so I expect Delcatty to get at least a second stage to be on par with a 2nd stage BST.

I don't know if the other cats would need a 2nd stage tho since they are not that far from each other except Pyroar who is in the 500 and near 2nd stage BST.